On The Road With Al & Ivy: A Literary Homeless Chronicle

 

"...Presently Jason understood the Pythoness to say that the voyage he must undertake would be renowned in song for unnumbered ages, if he took the precaution of sacrificing to Apollo, God Of Embarkations, on the day he launched his ship and on the night of his return. Then she lapsed into nonsense. The only recurrent phrase he could catch was that he should 'take the true Jason' with him..."

- Robert Graves (Hercules My Shipmate, aka The Golden Fleece. Quote abridged from book)

The month of April was quite eventful. It's well documented in my gofundme updates, so I'll just summarize:

I was offered two places to live while getting a fresh start in the Midwest. One in Wisconsin and the other in Illinois. The idea was to shuttle between both for a couple of months, with one becoming permanent if all went well. It included a one way airline ticket, so one major cost was covered.

The offer was one of a few ideas I looked at on how to proceed into summer, and it was the only one that put me into a room right away. 

All the other paths would have involved staying in the car for a few months, and given the housing situation in the SF Bay Area, probably much longer than that.

My old Cadillac was leaking gas, the tires were shot, the transmission was slipping, there was both a loss of compression in the engine and plenty of smoke. Enough smoke that a mechanic said the car would never pass smog without repairs. 

It wasn't a car that could transition from being a shelter to a commuter car, so my first priority would have been to get another vehicle, further extending the time to get indoors.

I decided that getting into a room was the priority. After 14 months I had overcome some obstacles and felt as "normal" again as I could be, even after the loss of Ivy, and felt that trying to go another summer (and fall) would become a diminishing return situation...looking back at the summer of 2016, when I was in a car that was stuck on a street for almost two months, I realized that in many ways I'd been very lucky to get through it without some sort of trouble from the various populations that roamed and camped there. 

Part of that luck was some old timers spreading the word that I was OK, and the other part was my little friend Ivy. You'd be surprised how often her cute presence diffused an otherwise serious situation.

For the summer of 2017, I was looking at a situation where Ivy and all the old timers I knew were gone. I suppose I'd have survived it, having gotten reasonably good at being homeless, but the Midwest offered a safe room, and what looked like a good job market. 

So I went. 

I'm about four weeks in, a couple of weeks in both places and found that there are a lot of adjustments to make, and those are coming along. I'd lived in the Midwest before so it wasn't a culture shock. I kept wearing Tshirts, trunks and sandals for way too long though, in the colder weather. Old California habits die hard.

I'm still in transition, I'm working hard on my book, "Hide In Plain Sight," and as an immediate job, or at least a source of some income, expanded my Boogie Underground Media promo venture. I'm starting to take on some charity work with it. One is Muttville, a dog rescue organization based in San Francisco.

The book is in the second pass, and I hope to have it ready for line editing within weeks. When I have the book far enough along, I'll begin a serious job search, though next week I figure it'll do no harm to start trying to get some freelance CAD work.

The subject matter of this blog will still deal with homelessness. There's still sections that were written or I planned to write about homelessness that didn't fit completely into the book, and I also wanted to be more topical about the issue in future entries.

There's still plenty of thanks to give to all the people that helped me. I know plenty have been given in the updates, but I'll cover the more in detail in the next entry. 

Future updates will be shorter, and come out more often. Maybe every 7-10 days. The blogs were long in the early days because it was a rehearsal for a book, and the aim was to get used to writing chapter length pieces. Which isn't necessary now, and I'd like to do blog entries more often.

I've seen many things out there, including the death of my dear friend Ivy, that won't be easily forgotten, and I pray that reading about what I've seen out there in this blog and my book will be as close as any of you will ever get to that kind of life.

...airports, and notions of time...

I was in the airport about 12 hours before the flight because it seemed like a good way to minimize Murphy's Law (which it didn't do, I covered that in detail in my last gofundme update) but also because it was a better place to be than a parking lot in Salinas. 

The opportunity to crash out legally and safely in a public place was too good to pass up.

I knew the hours would pass quickly, or more specifically, without any sense of it being a long wait. The flight, which was about four hours, no pun intended, literally flew by and as we touched down in Milwaukee; the wait in the terminal and flight, all that seemed like one big moment.

One of the things about adjusting to a more normal life is regaining my time sense...the world that runs by the clock disappears after 14 months in a car. 

There was a sense of forward motion but it tended to run from event to event, or location to location. There was day and night of course, but as I write this, I still don't have a sense that this or that day is Sunday or Monday or if it's a holiday. 

As a homeless person, having time just float by feels different. Life is a series of cycles that have a beginning, middle and end, and in between is the daily task of survival.

The flight didn't feel like four hours of time. It was a period of intense relief and tears, disbelief and then realization that I was heading thousands of miles away, wonder at how the country looked from so high up and how I could easily find my location using Google maps, sleep, fear and uncertainty about my decision to head east instead of staying, happiness at a safe landing and intense curiousity about my future. The clock said four hours had passed, and that's the other way to look at it.

...landing in Milwaukee...

Once the airliner landed in Milwaukee, time started to come back. It was like entering into another world. Many of the feelings that came back were familiar, some a shock to the system. More than a few times I've sat there on a chair or bed and tried to comprehend where I was.

The parking lots and streets I'd escaped seemed very far away, like waking up in the middle of a dream except that I'd become the person in that dreamscape and only my surroundings had changed. 

...my changed sense of perception...

I was mowing a lawn in Wisconsin, in wonderment at the normalcy of it all, then a man walked by wearing a backpack. It only took an instant to recognize that he was homeless. 

Earlier, in Illinois, I walked by one that was sleeping on the sidewalk near an area with rail and overpasses and wondered for a moment why he didn't sleep back there...there's similar places in Gilroy that's got a few camps, then I realized that it must be safer to sleep out in the open where he was. Maybe hobos, maybe gangs, something made it a better bet to sleep near the downtown area, but then, that's how a homeless person thinks...you look at a place and instantly size it up and have a picture of where's it safe to sleep and where it isn't. 

You take in details like the graffiti and can tell if it's by gangs or just taggers, even if the markings are local and I don't have a clue as to the meaning. 

I see some markings that are just wannabe stuff or trolling, and other signs where I make a mental note to avoid the place...it's not expert knowledge, or street heraldry. Just instinct, and empirical wisdom passed on to me by others who'd been out longer than me.

What is different now is that these perceptions can hit me while simply walking through a downtown area to visit a used book store. 

I pass a Café, admire some antiques in a vintage store window, walk further and see people sitting outside talking and laughing, then look down an alley and see signs of a homeless crash pad, then continue along and see who's coming to perform on an auditorium marquee. 

I sit for a while looking at the neighborhood, the place where I'm staying is off about a quarter mile. I see the streets, lots, overpasses, and in a few moments I've marked out in my mind all the areas to avoid at night, where I'd check to see if a car could park, a good place or two to hide if I were a backpacker, and any areas that looks "inhabited." Most of all, any area that flashes a danger sign in my subconscious.

I'm not sure it's a reflex that will ever completely disappear, not in a mind that's as busy as mine. The trick won't be to blank it out, but to let it flow in and out of my consciousness without effect...for now...after all, nothing's certain in life, and I might need those instincts again. 

However, I didn't not want those festering or just below the surface. It keeps the other baggage that needs to be worked through too close, and in too many dreams at night. All wisdom is empirical, and thus paid for, so there's no point to throwing it away like a three year old computer, but not all of it needs to be kept around.

...a word about ear plugs...

Wearing ear plugs was a habit I originally started to block out noises while trying to sleep during the day. It was a practice that I continued in the car.

I'd experimented with just using cotton balls or loose cloth but I preferred the superior noise blocking of ear plugs. 

Even if there was no sound outside, the plugs were like a blanket that blocked out unwelcome noises, like arguments but not sudden sounds I needed to hear like sirens and impact noises.

The world outside is only as private as people let it be, but blocking out sound is a temporary blind. Open ears can pick up sound and force me to react, blocked ears can't hear, so it's a form of escape and respite and let's me let go of the constant vigilance...it's not really safe to do that at night. It's a calculated risk, a break from the world.

- Al Handa 

   5/8/17

...cover reveal for Hide In Plain Sight...

 

This is the cover for the upcoming book, Hide In Plain Sight, designed by Jenna Brooks, supervised and edited by Mutiny Rising Media.

-Al Handa

ontheroadwithalandivy@gmail.com

The Al & Ivy Homeless Literary Journal Archive:

http://deltasnake.blogspot.com

Here's the blurb for Boogie Underground Media:

Boogie Underground Media promotion.

Email techmek@yahoo.com for list of services and prices starting from only $5.00!

On The Road With Al & Ivy: A Literary Homeless Chronicle - 6/1/17

 

"Day after day, day after day, We stuck, nor breath nor motion; As idle as a painted ship Upon a painted ocean."

- Samuel Taylor Coleridge (The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner)

Note: I'm trying to tighten up the rate of entries. I'll do another post in about a week with the parts I didn't get done in time for this one.

One of the concepts that came up in conversations with other homeless was that we were always the same person, and when circumstances get better, it's just a matter of getting back into the swing of things.

That's not entirely true, it depends on how long you're out there and what life is like during that time. You'll generally have to find yourself again.

If I had spent 14 months out there carrying everything I owned in the world in a backpack and sleeping in a makeshift shelter, I'd have have come out a different person than someone who spent that same amount of time in an old Cadillac.

Our basic nature would probably be intact, and but our lives are more than this simple essence or kernel...we manage our lives, making decisions that resolve immediate situations and others that have long term consequences. Many of the responses will run on automatic until consciously changed.

The guy (me) who took off with his dog in February of 2016 was different than the guy who later that summer gave a shirt to a young man who'd been robbed of his clothes...the earlier me would have done it out of pity and compassion, the summer me did it knowing that while I was getting the shirt out of the trunk, the kid had gotten a good look at what was inside and probably would pass that info on to his druggie pals. Sure enough, I later watched from a distance as a young woman from his crowd tried to break into my trunk. 

An earlier me might have confronted her or called the cops, the smarter me who had to live there decided that she was clearly too incompetent a burglar to get into the trunk and let it go, also knowing anyone calling the cops would labeled a squealer with maybe a dozen or more of her friends who'd be pissed about it and having nothing better to do in life than retaliate...the tough take no crap attitude is replaced by a philosophical time-space outlook that sees that anything that could happen would take place well inside the police response time or in a remote place while hiking that unlike the movies would really be like an animal brought down by a pack.

The outside world would call it living in fear, and that'd be true, but it's also seeing reality and making intelligent choices stripped of the often unrealistic truisms of law and order. Having seen such situations and acted accordingly in the short and long term, what happens when you are out of that life and safer? 

...a new life...

On my flight to the Midwest, I began to tear up and break down as the airliner taxied down the runway. As we climbed, I quietly cried and it wasn't from happiness or excitement. It was from a profound sense of relief, like I'd escaped all the constant fears that wore on me. Happiness has a different meaning in the life I was leaving.

It wasn't apparent for maybe a few days that there was something not quite right with me. The assumption was that entering into the normal world would be like riding a bike again...maybe a little rust, but you're off and running.

I'd say that in most things it was like riding a bike. What wasn't so obvious was that 14 months in the homeless world had affected my emotions, or more specifically emotional responses. People don't always understand that normalcy isn't a switch that turns on and off.

Certain situations would trigger fear, like when someone was being sarcastic or irritated. Out there on the street, I avoided trouble and confrontation at all costs. Even the most minor conflicts had the potential to escalate into a police and often did. 

There's a small segment of the population that will call the police for the smallest real and imagined transgressions by homeless. I cover this in detail in a couple of chapters in my upcoming book.

I've had the police called on me twice, for example, on complaints that were cleared up after an interview after 1AM. In one of those cases i was approached unawares with my window shades up. 

That created a tense situation where the officer had to approach slowly as it wasn't clear who was in the car, and I was startled when the flashlight beam blinded me, though I instinctively avoided any sudden movements and kept my hands visible.

The officer was polite, and once it was clear that I was harmless (and I acted both harmless and slightly stupid) then we both relaxed and it became a pleasant conversation. I did have to be aware that while we talked, my car was being visually searched. Which isn't a minor thing. I've seen more than a few casual conversations escalate into a search. Having a little white friendly dog does help in such cases.

...the sounds of silence...

You learn to clam up, look harmless, and answer all question clearly but simply...talking too much or too fast makes you look nervous, and in that weird state of nervousness and fear, it's easy to say something wrong. That's why I tended to act slightly dumb in front of authority...being dumb makes you look more harmless, and keeps you from babbling.

The problem is that in real life, it's not always wise or socially acceptable to clam up, or act dumb. Such responses are interpreted differently by people who are used to speaking fearlessly and not worried that it can escalate into a fight. This contrast is apparent in a lot of encounters between the homeless and regular people. 

There's an incident described in my book where a CHP officer is chewing me out in public, and while standing there like a dumbass with a blank expression, my mind is racing and fighting every impulse to react. I still have involuntary responses that kick in when someone gets irritated with me, for example, that wasn't apparent till the situation came up.

It's easy to just act smarter and talk more, but when someone gets short, impatient or irritated with me, it still can trigger an involuntary fear response like going dumb or withdrawing. You have to be careful out there, not just avoiding conflict but inadvertently giving out personal information, or showing cash to a stranger. Out there it's smart, in the real world, it can come off as paranoid or anti-social.

I found my conversational skills had deteriorated. I could write well, but having deep conversations still requires a conscious effort and still feels awkward. I didn't talk to many people out there.

...hurry up and buy...

I still often just sit there in a room, and it took weeks to realize that it was my car behavior. Sitting like a rock can look like laziness or depression (and sometimes it is), but in my car, there was a reason I sat still. Doing nothing doesn't cost money.

Sitting in the car doing nothing wasn't just a case of suppressing impulses to buy, it was also avoiding the stimuli that surrounds people utilizing every scientific trick in the book to make them spend money.

I don't underrate modern advertising and display. It's not much different than military psych ops and propaganda. It's an active attempt to create demand even if you really don't need the product and will use every manipulative trick from false self esteem to shame...and much if it works.

Out there, I'm saving money. In the real world, I'm sitting there like a lump in a room and subject to any number of labels people attach to apparent slugs, though in most cases, I'm just thinking.

If I wasn't talking to Ivy then there was no conversation and luckily, after over a year of solitude, i didn't start talking with inanimate objects.

There's this relief but with all the things you did to survive, has it all been switched off yet?

That's a question that's still being answered, and I'll know more next week, and the week after, and the week after...

- Al Handa 

   6/2/17

...cover reveal for Hide In Plain Sight...

This is the cover for the upcoming book, Hide In Plain Sight, designed by Jenna Brooks, supervised and edited by Mutiny Rising Media.

-Al Handa

ontheroadwithalandivy@gmail.com

The Al & Ivy Homeless Literary Journal Archive:

http://deltasnake.blogspot.com

Here's the blurb for Boogie Underground Media:

Boogie Underground Media promotion.

Email techmek@yahoo.com for list of services and prices starting from only $5.00!

On The Road With Al and Ivy: A Homeless Literary Chronicle - Dec. 13th, 2018

"Homer died two hundred years ago, or more, and we still speak of him as though he were living...the others he wrote in his epic of the Trojan War. They are mere shadows, given substance by his songs; which alone retain the force of life; the power to soothe or stir or draw tears."

- Robert Graves (Homer's Daughter 1955)

I celebrated a half million views in the November blog entry, and this month should see another milestone; the completion of the final draft of the book.

It'll still need to be line edited (and possibly refined as a result) but I decided last month that it was time to finish. I remember good friend, author and editor, Melody Ramone, once telling me that there'd come a time when it felt "finished" and added half jokingly that I'd also might be sick to death of the manuscript.

That was certainly true, though being "sick of it" in my case is more a case of the musical equivalent, which is feeling that the work is as good as it's going to get and will risk becoming worse (or boring) if it keeps getting fussed over.

When McGraw and I worked on music for our Handa-McGraw International albums and YouTube channel (Electric Fog Factory), we differentiated between music for recording and live work.

We always stopped jamming and trying out new arrangements on a recorded piece when it felt right. After that, it was all about getting the right take, and technical perfection was always secondary to feel. For example, on the YouTube channel there are several numbers that were intended as demos, but never replaced. That's because a finished version hadn't been done that had the right feel.

My book is similar to an album, mainly because the artistic sensibility is musical. It had stopped being a chronological journal by the second draft and became a work driven by a musical sensibility.

...empathy, sympathy, and pity...

I also avoided passages, particularly about characters, that delineated some sort of main theme or "timeless" concept. There are several in the book whose lives are instead described dispassionately, or without judgement (as much as possible).

A neutral stance isn't always easy to achieve, because of the natural desire to steer the reader into feeling a particular emotion, particularly sympathy. There's temptation to slant or change the characterization to do that. Which isn't forbidden in a novel, of course, but not desirable in my case.

The neutral stance is the most empathetic. That can result in passages where the reader might ask, is Al condoning what the character is doing or lacking any pity for the person?

There are parts of the book, for example, where a person eating out of a garage can is described in detail. Not just the physical minutiae, but the mentality. It's a scene without declarations of shock or horror, and written from the point of view of an observer who was also hungry, felt hopeless, and could understand where the scavenger was coming from.

I found that the first drafts of the scenes (added in the fifth run through) were as good as those would ever be. Every attempt to revise it took it further away from the raw, effective description and "judgement" began to creep in.

It was transitioning away from a mentality that could only exist in that moment to a mannered one stemming from the detachment that comes later when being able to eat well. My view of those incidents also differed between the early incidents and those seen much later. 

In the earlier passage, I was seeing it for the first time, the second was after being among the homeless for several months and had a clear idea of who scavenged food and why. 

It is a stark, visceral act to scavenge food, especially in front of people. My own feeling is that it should never happen, that society must make sure that no one is ever forced to do such a thing. That's obvious to anyone with even a shred of humanity.

To write about it from my point of view would risk making it about me and my feelings. To describe it from their point of view, humanizes the image, and requires a dispassionate lens, but in the end tells their story in a way that has a chance to be revelatory. The pathos is greater if the character isn't turned into an archetype. 

When the later incident didn't shock me, it wasn't because I had "become hardened," or self involved. There was an understanding among many of the homeless that anyone that desperate should be helped. How some did so could strike you as weird, but motivated by a humanity shaped by the moment. There was one collective effort for a mentally ill scavenger, described in the book that at the time, struck me both as very eccentric but filled with human warmth.

Food and water was offered freely, particularly if the person was new, and being stingy was a rare act in the circles I traveled in. In the summer months, for example, friends would come by and make sure we had cold water to drink and enough to eat.

...acceptance...

The main thing people gave each other was acceptance. 

Most homeless are acutely aware that they're being judged, often harshly. If they saw a person going through a garbage can, they almost never interrupted the act. I go into more detail about why in the book, but there were good reasons for that. 

The best time to approach the person, as a fellow homeless, was later on when the person was done. For one thing, there were various reasons a person could be doing it. Some had nothing to do with hunger. 

One reason was that we lived among a great many who were mentally ill. Some were harmless, some weren't. Interrupting a mentally ill person at a dumpster could trigger a unpredictable reaction, particularly at night. 

We learned to observe first before acting.

Several of the people who became friends had observed me for a few days before approaching. Some weren't sure I was "all there" because of my severely bad haircut at the time, constantly talking to myself, and the odd habit (to them) of carrying Ivy instead of using a leash (not to mention constantly talking to her also). There were reasonable explanations for the above, of course, but they couldn't know that. 

Being constantly short of sleep and good meals, often in fear, sometimes angry, and being dirty created a feral mindset that showed in the early drafts. My prose at some points could have been alternately mistaken for a motorhead rap, a paranoid who saw danger at every turn, and most valuable to my book, a realization that, at least in the present, he was one of them, had to live with them, and that they were just people like him. It's a mood that was worth preserving.

...the Ivy chapter...

For example, I'm glad I wrote the chapter about Ivy's death in the early drafts. Writing about it now as it really happened then would be difficult. The existing chapter captures the physical impact of devastation that fades with time.

One key point that the original account captured was that after Ivy died, an important link to sanity was gone. Admitting that I "lost it" is easy, but keeping in the actual thoughts and behavior of that moment that cycled rapidly through anger, ingratitude, pain, and even blasphemy would be a tempting candidate for self editing. Also, for several hours, I lost all awareness of my surroundings, and disregarded every precaution normally taken in a homeless area at night. 

There was shock, then a raw paralyzing fright that set in once the adrenalin was gone. Even as she died, I could still at least hang on to the notion that superhuman effort or desperate prayer might work, because even long odds sustain hope.

There's an old term, "staring into the abyss," that captures it perfectly. The dreams of the previous four months died that day, yet on that terrible night after it all happened, what actually ran through my mind surprised me even then. It wasn't suicide, getting numb from drugs, striking out in anger, or any of that. I'd have welcomed apathy at that point.

I think that any of us who has such a moment, where a stark truth hits so hard that it renders everything meaningless, and I think it's different for everyone, has to reaffirm something at their core, whether it's faith or a choice, and move into and through that "void."

The term "reaffirm" is a big theme in the second half of the book. There was a decision made four months earlier that turned out to be relevant that sad night, and pulled me out and forward. Like a ship that had been in a terrible storm, found itself well off it's path, but knew it's course and continued the journey. Though it's not always obvious, there's a path that starts in the first chapter all the way to the last.

The first draft ended in February just after the one year anniversary of becoming homeless. In fact, the ending had already been written. I considered leaving it that way, but decided that Ivy was too important to the story and kept writing, something another writer would understand.

She projected so much personality and helped galvanize so much help. If my writing ability is up to the level of ambition in this book, then perhaps you'll be rooting for me to succeed for at least pity's sake, but will most certainly admire Ivy's great big spirit. She started off homeless as a pup, but only got more indomitable no matter what life offered. Make no mistake, she knew we were homeless.

In the larger sense, everything I want to say in the book is there, and it's time to finish it. If all goes well, I'll be able to tell everyone that the final draft is completed on December 31st.

"Nothing, including alcohol, ranked as high as coffee for the Civil War soldier. Men drank it before, during, after, and in lieu of meals. Many wrote of it in letters home, praising the soothing qualities of a pistol-hot cup of grind."

- Thomas R. Flagel (The History Buff's Guide To The Civil War)

Coffee is one of mankind's great loves. It's regarded both as a necessity and a luxury worth paying extra for drinks that have less coffee in it. Most of the world actually prefers tea but like soccer as opposed to NFL football, it'll never replace coffee in the Western Hemisphere.

It only took me a few weeks of living in a car to regard coffee as just an occasional indulgence.

One problem with coffee is that makes you go to the bathroom too much. Going to the bathroom out there was often a real hassle. The other problem is that it's pricey by the cup. Even at a place like MacDonald's where it costs a buck, that was a day's worth of decent meals for my dog.

I eventually started buying a six pack of eight ounce generic cola for a dollar fifty for any needed caffeine boost, and most mornings that did just fine. Part of the reason that worked was because I was primarily a tea drinker for most of my life, so while I liked coffee, it wasn't irreplaceable.

Also, caffeine wasn't a useful drug out there. It could be tense enough, particularly at night, and if I could relax enough to sleep for a few hours, then that was more important. If sleep didn't come that night, I needed to be able to nap during the day.

I missed a lot of things but coffee wasn't high on the list, and have to admit, that was a surprise.

"And honey is the holiest thing ever was, hive, comb and earwax, the food for glory..."

- James Joyce (Finnegan's Wake)

Now honey, that was a different thing altogether. I wasn't a big fan of the stuff in regular life, but out there it was invaluable.

Bread is a cornerstone in any cheap diet, and a good loaf in a variety of flavors can be had for a dollar. Honey is perfect because it's affordable, makes bread taste great, and can be kept in a car as it doesn't spoil.

Honey has a different aura than other cheap foods. For example, beans and bread are quite filling and nutritious, but let's face it, it's still beans and bread. Now, bread with honey on it, well, that's like a snack at home with all it's comforts.

A nice cheap sweet snack was no small thing. Other amazingly cheap goodies, like oatmeal cream sandwiches, could turn white sugar into a punishing experience. I finished a box by scraping out the filling and just eating the cookies, but the joy was less than transcendent.

I don't consume much honey now, but like my dearly departed Birkenstocks, it was a friend when I needed it.

"How fleeting are the wishes and efforts of man! How short his time! and consequently how poor will his products be."

- Charles Darwin (On The Origin Of Species)

Alpha types tend to interpret "survival of the fittest" as a validation of aggression or masculinity, which is really more Nitchzie (or Ayn Rand) superman stuff. It is a part of natural selection, but the concept is more nuanced.

Being the biggest baddest dude may help get the women interested, but that only meant that he could win a head butting contest with other males. Assuming they fight fair.

Mankind didn't survive because of physical prowess. If we had depended purely on alphas, we'd have been on the desert menu for saber tooth tigers after their main course of he-men. The list of animals that can kick a human butt in a fair fight is long and beyond the scope of this blog entry. Though making such a list might be fun...maybe in a future blog.

What enabled us to evolve into beings that can create thousand dollar hamburgers and shoes was the ability to form groups that could forget political differences long enough to use their intelligence to manufacture weapons and gang up on the savage beasts (most of whom are heading quickly towards extinction, particularly if their body parts are thought to increase male verility).

Looking at the world now, it's obvious that man's main enemy and competitor on the food chain is man. Darwin noted that the competition within a species is more intense.

An invasion by martians might give mankind a reason to unite, but with our superior intelligence and egos that verge on God complexes, any resistance would be crippled by large numbers of people who'd prefer to collaborate and profit by treachery.

Idealists who believe in our innate niceness might scoff at that, but given the large number of people who wish they could become vampires or believe E.T.s built the pyramids, it's clear that the seeds of treason will always be present.

Well, maybe that is Darwinism after all. Like I said, the subject is full of nuance.

Anyway...the reason I discuss capitalism so much is that it is, in the Western World, more than God, the true state religion. Out there in the streets, it was a word that had a lot of relevance.

Like any philosophy or doctrine, capitalism often becomes what people say it is. Much of my early anxiety and fear of the streets was due to Hollywood and literary depictions of it being a tough place ruled by apex predators. Which, as I've said in the past, was found to be only partly true.

Capitalism is really about money. Nothing else.

Sure, there's things like power and status but none of that happens without money. Where that money goes and who gets it is only part of the doctrine. The comparisons to Darwin and survival of the fittest just tends to be one of many platitudes to keep the other 99% quiet and respectful.

The various species on this planet actually survive because of a multitude of successful strategies, but the main one is intelligence. "Street smarts" isn't just about being amoral or a supreme BS'er to survive. Most of the survivor types in my book were smart enough not to play the usual games.

"But I could not do the work of writing a book, or even a long magazine article, if it were not also an aesthetic experience."

- George Orwell (Essay: Why I Write)

I generally write out of sequence, as for whatever reason, the parts and passages tend to spill out of the consciousness in seemingly random order. That might be due to playing music, which may seem linear but isn't always so in the composition stage.

I wrote out the first draft knowing that the book wasn't opening in a satisfactory way, but kept writing, figuring to address it on the next run through. It was on the fourth pass where the first chapter really came together.

The second draft mainly added all of my thoughts and opinions, which would have resulted in an annoyingly subjective stream of consciousness book...but it was important in that the passages did delineate what I wanted the book to "say" and by the fourth draft was taking those mini essays out and putting in actual story, dialogue, and character actions to not only show what formed those opinions, but doing it a way that lets the reader decide what it means.

There were incidents that turned out to be connected to other passages and it was surprising to realize that there were things going on that weren't comprehended at the time.

For example, I saw things at the county social assistance office that seemed like simple friendly interaction between the homeless and gangs and totally missed the well oiled operation where dealers not only obtained ebt cards for sale but literally harvested homeless druggies for their monthly checks like sheep for their wool.

Also, as I constructed the story of one young woman, the various passages when combined showed her being groomed to become a truck stop hooker and that she was in fact being guarded and not just partying with the same group of guys. The final night she was in the area ended up in a scene that took on a much darker aspect than planned.

Part of the process was becoming more aware of what really happened so as a result, the decision was made to leave in descriptions as seen then, but tied together with better hindsight, with no later judgements or attempts at pathos. The reader can make their own judgement and conclusions, and even better, get a glimpse into their own feelings and attitudes by their reaction to the stories.

I'm still working that part out, how to describe the story as I saw it, and not as I see it now.

"Civilization has increased man's producing power a hundred-fold, and through mismanagement the men of civilization live worse than the beasts." 

- Jack London (The People Of The Abyss)

George Orwell saw Jack London as a person who truly understood fascism because of his atavistic Darwinian sensibilities. He also understood London because like him, he was also an "unreliable" socialist who saw the real world as opposed to trying to fit it into a doctrinal lens.

Both actually went in and lived in poor slum areas, and at times were among the homeless (though both had a different experience with it) and wrote about it. Homeless literature, particularly the first hand experience type, isn't a new phenomenon.

London did it when he was a successful, well off writer, and took the precaution to create a safe house during the early homeless phase of the book writing. There were points where he used it rather than tough it out on the streets, though one couldn't fault that as the intent was to create a first hand account rather than a memoir.

He wanted to understand slum life in London, who was living it, and portray the actual people and what they were like. What he saw deeply affected him. This was clear later in the book, when his feelings about the economic system and attitudes that made such a poor class even possible in a rich society came out. 

The focus was on people and their stories for the most part, and the understanding that poverty created a lifestyle that literally trapped people in it. Even more importantly, he was perceptive enough to realize that the poor wasn't one big group but several subcultures.

Orwell, who was inspired by London, engaged in similar forays into poverty zones and developed a similar take. Like his predecessor, the descriptions were detailed and remarkably free of judgement or preaching and more powerful because of that.

Orwell wrote two books, "Down and Out In London and Paris," and "The Road To Wigan Pier," both still worthwhile reading. The first part of the Wigan Pier book, which describes his experiences working among the Welsh Coal miners is a masterful, a true classic.

The second half of the Wigan Pier book, is a bit off topic, but worth describing. It assumes a devil's advocate role and discusses the faults of English socialism, and succeeded so well that the publisher of the book, a Socialist, felt it necessary to add a disclaimer that Orwell's essay in the second half didn't reflect the mainstream socialist view.

One of the offending passages said that socialists were perceived as sandal wearing "bearded fruit juice drinkers trying to eek out a few more years" of life, which also shows that the health food craze isn't a new phenomena.

As I said earlier, both he and London were considered "unreliable" socialists.  

The thing that affected me the most wasn't their descriptions of privation. A typical lunch before homelessness was often just beans, or cheese and bread. I didn't necessarily see having to eat a can of pork and beans in a car as a hardship.

What hit me was how important the mental aspect was, and the crippling effect of hopelessness and apathy. My own scariest moment wasn't due to any of the crime that was around or any physical threat.

It was when it hit me that the situation could be my life and future. It stemmed from a single incident that, in a manner of speaking, triggered an avalanche. A loss that any normal person might shrug off but felt cataclysmic at the time. That didn't happen to London, who could leave anytime. However, he did see that hopelessness was crippling, and that it was accentuated by the lifestyle. 

...the night life...

In one instance, he tried to stay out that night and sleep, then try to find a job in the morning. Instead, he had to join the multitude who were constantly chased out of doorways and parks, and finding that the police finally let them sleep when the parks opened during the day. Exhausted, and hungry, and with rain coming, he gave up and went back to the safe house. 

Seeing the homeless asleep on park benches during the day in America is generally dismissed as booze or drug fueled stupors, and certainly, that can be the case. Just as often, though, it's because they had to stay moving during the night, but for different reasons than London described. 

I devote a couple of chapters to that. I've stressed the importance of having a car in past blogs, that keeping it in running condition was the priority. The reason was that without it, I could end up on foot, carrying as much of my belongings as possible along with Ivy and in constant danger of being mugged at night.

In those chapters I reconstructed the night routines of various people that I saw. I know about it because during that six week period when my car was dead in the water, I had to think about what would happen if it was towed. There was at least one store manager who was trying his best to get the police to do that even though it was parked out on the street.

So, I watched the night people, where they went, their routines, where the safe areas were, etc. I didn't really think that if it came to being a back packer that it would stay that way for long. There were a couple of RV and car homeless that would have taken me in if that happened.

The problem was, that was an option only if they were still around.

For example, a couple and a woman who was part of an enclave, would dog sit Ivy so I could try to get a job, but the couple was chased out of town by the sheriffs department, the other by some store management and police. 

So suddenly within a two day period, no dog sitters. That's how unpredictable life was out there. I had to assume that if the car went away, we could be on our own for some period of time, and that it was dangerous to simply wander about without any plan or knowledge of the night scene.

The basic rule of survival on foot at night was either have a safe place (not to sleep, that would be stupid to do out in the open), or keep moving (at least until the "safe time"). 

The transient sleeping in a park archetype was described in London's book, and is still seen today. His comment is still relevant. He asked those who might assume it was just a lazy or dissolute person to realize that it might actually be the exhausted sleep of someone who'd been harried and moved along all night by the police. Once he experienced the night they had, they became real people and faces.

I can add, you would sleep out in public because bedding down in a private place is potentially very dangerous. Sleeping in an isolated hiding place is the equivalent of walking through dark alleys at night.

What I want to do is present the reader with faces and lives. Instead of an image of an unfortunate herd suitable for framing in a 90 second news spot or web article that mainly quotes business and property owners, it'll have stories like that of a young homeless woman escaping abuse and probably headed for a life of prostitution, drugs, or criminality. Put there by people who aren't homeless, and as a prostitute, serving members of respectable society not interested in helping her. 

Her story and others like it should say all what needs to be said. I think good decent people, like the ones who helped me so much won't need to be told what they're seeing.

I hope the book does a good job of letting you all see what I saw.

- Al Handa

  Dec. 13, 2018

...cover reveal for Hide In Plain Sight...

This is the cover for the upcoming book, Hide In Plain Sight, hopefully out sometime in 2018.

-Al Handa

djboogieunderground@gmail.com

The Al & Ivy Homeless Literary Journal Archive:

There are earlier blog entries on the Delta Snake Review section of this site that aren't on the On The Road page:
http://deltasnake.blogspot.com

On The Road With Al & Ivy: A Literary Homeless Chronicle - Oct. 19, 2018

"Though frightening, your dream is a significant portent. You must know the Gods have decreed that the lot of the living is to grieve. Your dream ordains mourning for the one who survives."

- The Gilgamesh (Gerald J. Davis 2014 translation)

"I have heard it said that there are men who read in books to convince themselves there is a God."

- James Fenimore Cooper (Last Of The Mohicans)

"...I was playing the guitar but heard an orchestra in my head."

- John Fahey

As of this writing (of this opening section), this blog has reached a wonderful milestone; a half million visits, virtually all of it for the "On The Road With Al & Ivy" homeless literary journal that began on the Delta Snake page and was later split off into it's own blog. The half million figure is the total for the two blog pages.

The earlier blog was called the Delta Snake Review, which was intended to be a continuation of my 80s blues and jazz newsletter (and later website), and to continue writing the music instrument reviews that I had been doing for the ePinions site (before it closed down the review sections).

I've been writing since the 80s, back then for my newsletter and as a freelance who was able to get work in regional weekly papers and later on the Internet. I've always identified as a writer, among other things, but found that freelance work tended to make the end game all about money and the prestige level of the customer, and not writing as art. A process that moves art into the realm of sales, which creates the age old artistic dichotomy of expression and craft.

The circulation of the publication (and it's grand arbiter, the Editor) was seen as the writer's "audience," at least by conventional wisdom according to writer magazines and other experts. 

Any freelance writer with half a brain quickly realizes that the real "audience" is that one person who has the power to buy the piece. A person has a better chance of making a sale working at a jewelry counter.

That didn't make me cynical. I'd been a musician, I already knew the entertainment business was brutal, and had my own reasons for playing music in spite of that, and that went for writing too. Freelance did teach me some valuable skills that I'll cover in a future blog.

I self-published to be able to write about music without anyone's approval, and found my audience. Sometimes that was a relatively small number of paid subscribers like with the Delta Snake Blues Review, or a larger number like with my ePinions instrument reviews with 370,000 visits.

...what's really important...

My priority was always audience, or to have actual people reading my writing. If it was profitable, great, if not, fine. 

The thing is, although writing for one's satisfaction and growth is important, public expression is about reaching people. If not, I would just tap all this out on my iPad, enjoy the inner rewards and be done with it.

If I had been like that, perhaps I'd now still be out there in a car, struggling alone without my good pal Ivy and thinking it was all fate (or punishment, more on that later in this blog).

Instead, because I was a writer, i kept writing, I called out for help and was saved by that very audience that read my blog.

I called out for help in spite of every shame instinct because, among other things, writing had taught me that real art was expression and that included possibly looking bad. 

...Good writing is about truth...

Truth isn't some corny Hollywood movie line. It's the difference between a work that connects with people and one that's forgotten quickly.

The subject of truth in art is, of course, much larger than what can be covered in this blog entry, but in my case, it was all about how art is a connection to the real self.

The musical equivalent is being able to play the sound that's in your head, and not having it filtered by concerns like money or approval, or limited by technical ability. Which is why "practice" in any art is important. You're not training to be play lessons or sound like some legend. It's to develop the technique to be able to play what you want to play.

Another way to say it is if you can master music scales on your instrument, you can possibly master yourself. Those scales and etudes are nowhere near as difficult as the music in the mind that wants to come out. 

Technical skill is a tool or path. Some stay stuck in it, some can move on. Neither is better or worse actually, but if you want to become a Van Gogh, the path is beyond the technical.

In terms of writing, what I'm talking about is being able to honestly write what's in your head. "Being honest" is a common writing axiom, but way too many writers interpret that as simply being blunt about other things and people, or listing things that are really designed to titillate.

There's things that are comfortable to say, and others that aren't. Society has made it easier to come out and say that drug's caused one's fall, for example, but it's not so easy to admit to the deeds done because of that habit.

If I had tried to finish the book out there in the car, I'd have probably not mentioned pimps and drug dealers, even in my blog. For my safety if nothing else. Fear is an effective censor.

The homeless scene was a sprawling collection of people, some of whom caused trouble, could get you in trouble, couldn't help but get into trouble, or avoided trouble. It might seem tempting to treat them as a purely sympathetic huddled mass, and it'd be OK to do that if I saw it that way.

But it would be artistically dishonest in my case if I saw it differently. There was no Godfather movie type glamor out there, no tough guy mean streets, or anything that would fit in a Hollywood film.

...life on the streets...

The "streets" are all too often portrayed as a tough Darwinian world where "street smarts" and toughness are a virtue, and the enemy is straight society and the cops.

As I've said in past blog entries, it's true if it is and isn't when it isn't.

One of the things that hit me out there was how different the reality of street life was out there, as opposed to what it seemed to be in books, TV and movies. It was supposed to be a world full of bad cops, criminals who were really rebels with loyalty and heart, and a poor noble multitude who had been forsaken by a materialistic society.

The real "street" is very Darwinan (and very capitalist), and it's as repressive as any police state (and not from the cops). All the elements are there; from leaders who look out for number one, brown shirt type thugs, and most importantly for any police state to exist, a vast system of informants and commissar types who keep the faith.

Fascism has become a stereotype with Nazi images as the default portrait, but it is, and always has been really a modern ideology, an outlook concerned about power. It's about control and the use of force and can develop anywhere. George Orwell wrote that it was a development that came after the 19th century colonial/imperialistic period (in a nutshell anyway, it's explained a more complex way in his essays).

Put more plainly, it was a world with sharks and little fish.

You had to be selfish out there. My goal was to get Ivy and me out, to survive, and without committing any crimes if at all possible. I did manage to not commit crimes, and survive, but in all honesty, it was because I was rescued by a lot of good people, and not due to any heroic acts on my part.

I didn't rob anyone, but in the later drafts of the book, as my life began to return to "normal," it became apparent that for whatever reason, good or not, I had to not act on or report on a good many crimes out there.

There was a woman, for example, out there that everyone could see was getting too deep into drugs in the worst possible place, and was being cultivated by a dealer/pimp whom no one dared cross. Another young woman was cultivated by a man from respectable society who showered her with gifts then disappeared after using her. Another guy was almost certainly a sociopath who preyed on men, and the list could go on, other than the usual (and true) disclaimer that most of the people out there were good and decent.

Sure, I didn't see the actual crimes...no one can ignore that sort of thing unless absolutely heartless. I'd have had to take the risk of telling the police. But that possible male predator, for example, actually targeted me before another homeless guy. I sensed a trap and avoided any contact, but the next guy didn't and only then I realized what was happening and how lucky I was.

I also kept my mouth shut.

It happened in that awful period when my car was immobile for two months on a street, and there was good reason to not say say anything; the most obvious being that there was no way to leave and avoid reprisal. 

...the early drafts...

The early drafts projected a sense of abject fear, covered by a mask of bravado and street smarts. It was tempting to edit out the fearful ruminations and portray myself as a brave soul with a faithful dog that formed an indomitable team.

The reality was that the homeless life took a real toll, and I reacted in a variety of ways that showed strength, but also weakness and frailty. There was apathy around, as described in past blog entries, but the underlying element was always fear.

It even affected Ivy. She certainly grew into an indispensable hero, but also came to realize that I was the main link to safety in a life centered around a car seat, and experienced moments of fear and anxiety.

It wasn't doggie paranoia or separation anxiety. There was at least one attempt to break into the car to get her that was broken up by a homeless friend who intervened. It was by this seemingly well off couple that had been shadowing me for  couple of days. The attempt to grab her through a partially open window was traumatic.

It's part of a bigger story in the book, but in a nutshell, there were more than a few people who tried to get dogs taken away from the homeless for various reasons.

One reason that honesty is difficult in art is we all like to avoid criticism. We prefer to create work that people will like, to enjoy, and let's face it, to perhaps buy. No one buys things that makes them feel bad.

The fear described in the book wasn't cowardice. It was close to some things experienced as a child, but nothing I could say was experienced before, but in writing honestly about it, the chance has to be taken that people would consider it cowardice or not caring about those around me.

No one will learn anything new if I just get into a Grapes of Wrath trip (the movie version) and write about a glorious struggle in broad terms and beloved archetypes.

So the book has to be honest, and part of that means I have to risk readers seeing all that I did out there to survive, and being critical of me. A true writer can't be thin skinned.

...get out of town stranger...

Ivy and I did have to do many things to survive. Things I never imagined we were capable of, both good and bad. We were scared and at times frightened out of our wits, but pulled together and managed to create a life out there that sustained us until I was able to leave that car.

As we all know, Ivy didn't make it out, though I took her ashes out with me. I'll only bury her when we get home, and we'll know when that is. Like said in an earlier entry, we found out what home was out there, and I'll know it when I see it again.

Back to honesty; one thing that made me leery of leaving certain parts of the first drafts intact was how much I obviously depended on Ivy. The first thought was that it was projecting an awful lot onto her, but as the drafts were refined, it became obvious that she changed a lot and grew. 

That little shih tzu was indeed a sentient being that could comprehend things and learn. She was transcendent at times, but also did things that in one instance forced me to flee a city and never go back. No one was hurt, and in the great scheme of things in homeless life, forgivable, and if truth be told, ultimately my fault.

Plus in retrospect, it was pretty funny. Not so at the time, but now, it's funny to picture me and Ivy having to get out of town before the sheriff deputies, called in by a bunch of old ladies, arrived to arrest us.

My past analogy about having formed a pack, and its implications will become clearer to the reader after reading many of the chapters. It's not about friendship in the usual human ways, but how life itself responds to adversity.

By being honest about how I lived out there, and in expressing my often less than heroic thoughts, I think the book will be less about cardboard heroes and villains and more about things that people will recognize as real life. Life didn't end when I found myself living in a car.

Like I said earlier, the reality was that I was rescued, and the real heroes are those blog readers and friends that decided I was worth saving. The reason they knew about my plight was that I was a writer and that skill too saved me.

...getting back to the Delta Snake...

The blog started off as the Delta Snake, which by 2016 had drawn about 5000 visits. It was intended to be a "sequential magazine" that had features to be added as each was written and not in groups presented on publication dates.

The early "On The Road With Al & Ivy" entries started off under the Delta Snake banner but had to be split off into it's own blog after Twitter flagged tweets from the Google site, blogspot.com. By that time, traffic had grown to over 100,000 visits and I figured that growth would stop once the blog had to be moved.

Instead it kept growing, and it was a real source of pride and comfort out there.

Art, in this case writing, and the people it reached saved my life. That's as rich as an artist can get. This morning the blog reached a half million visits, Friday October 19, 2018.

I feel profound gratitude, and thank you all for the greatest gift a writer could get, an audience that reads his work.

...on the eve of a music gig...

I'm writing this section on the eve of my first live musical performance since the late 70s. Back then, I had played with the a punk band (first in my area) and later founded a blues band, The Delta Snake, that went nowhere but gave my newsletter (and now a music blog) it's name.

It'll be at the Central Illinois Pagan Pride Festival, and I was asked by one of it's organizers, author Melodie Ramone to play a couple of sets. I agreed as long as I didn't have to follow the Goth Metal Belly Dancers. No solo acoustic guitarist on this planet can follow that act.

I'll be performing a set of American and World "Primitive" music, a term that John Fahey used to describe his solo acoustic guitar music that influenced and inspired a generation of musicians that included Leo Kottke, George Winston, Robbie Basho and many others.

The first time I heard him play was in the early 70s at this place that eventually became the Mountain Winery in Saratoga, California. He was the opening act on a bill the included Robbie Basho and folk legend Dave Van Ronk. He played first because he had to be at a later gig up north, and needed to get off early.

I was a teenager then, and hadn't even picked up a guitar yet. My musical background was as a violin player playing classical and show tunes in school events.

Fahey came on, and seemed to go into a trance, then started to play a medium tempo fingerpicking piece and from there the set flowed from song to song, only stopping at times to change the tuning on his guitar or switch to slide.

It was a mesmerizing performance, covering a lot of folk and blues styles but in a way I hadn't been heard before. Even my classically trained (and maybe a bit rigid) mind could tell that much of the music was as improvised as a jazz piece.

By the early 70s, folk and folk blues had become pretty much set in how it sounded, almost on the level of an oldies show, though perhaps hipper. The tonalities were familiar and crowd pleasing.

Fahey's music was similar in ways; it was essentially a concert version of folk and country blues instrumentals with one major difference, it freely moved in and out of dissonance, which was as different to my ears as avant-garde classical was to Mozart.

What he did during the  break was interesting, and I never saw any other performer do it. Fahey put his guitar down, lit up a cigarette and just sat there, calmly looking at the audience. 

The ending was even more unusual. After the set, he stood up, waved to acknowledge the applause, then jumped off the stage and ran up the hill towards the parking lot and gradually disappeared from view. We watched him run all the way to the parking lot, and I later learned he was eccentric like that.

After that concert, I bought my first Fahey album, "The Dance Of Death And Other Plantation Favorites," which is probably still one of my favorite recordings.

The key thing that influenced the purchase of a guitar afterwards wasn't the music per se, but that Fahey showed me that a person could create and live in a universe with just one instrument. You didn't need a band or orchestra, you could say it all with a guitar.

I think anyone who writes, or loves books knows this already.

...music is life...

In the earlier drafts of my book, music didn't seem very important. In fact, one of the earlier conclusions was that my love for music had degenerated into instrument collecting for it's own sake and was just one of the layers of the material world that was shed during a time of painful rediscovery.

It took some time and distance to realize that the conclusion was actually fueled by a deep sense of loss. A little part of me went away as each instrument in my collection was sold off to survive.

My blog entries, which first started in the Delta Snake section, originally show a person who thought that music (and the original conception of the book, the epic poem) would be a key element in surviving homelessness. 

I still had my instruments then, which were in storage, and there was still optimism that homelessness was just a temporary bump in the road. As things got worse, the carefree entries continued and masked a growing realization that it was all no longer a simple road trip.

As said in an earlier blog entry, it wasn't losing the valuable pieces that was depressing. There was still plenty of stuff left in the collection early on. It was when the last instruments, the cheap ones, were sold for just a few more days of survival that it hit home that things weren't going to get better.

My narrative in the first drafts expressed disillusionment about music as a lifestyle, about it being part of a past that had to be let go. That it all went away.

But that wasn't true. 

For one thing, I did come out of it with some instruments; a charango that no one would buy, and two harmonicas. All of which I shipped to the Midwest ahead of my arrival. The charango was both a survivor and now a treasured instrument.

Plus I did play music out there. 

It had to be done discreetly, as it wasn't smart to let the druggies out there know that my car had instruments that were easy to covert into quick cash (and more importantly, that Ivy might be in the car at the time it was broken into). 

Which was ironic as the charango was, at least according to legend, an instrument built to be easily hidden from the Spanish colonialists who ran Peru and Bolivia and made it illegal for natives to own a guitar. Whether that's true, I don't know, but it gave the charango mojo, so I chose to believe it.

I also avidly collected music for Spotify playlists, thanks to their customer service who gave me free time after finding out I was homeless. Though oddly enough, I rarely listened to the music afterwards.

It became too melancholy to play and after a while to even listen to music. I thought it was disillusionment about living a life that revolved around music, but it really was a profound sense of loss over a love that went back as early as I could remember.

...arrival...

I arrived in the Midwest in 2017, shell shocked, and even now, still have moments that feel like flashbacks. There was so much lost out there, and as parts come back, like music, it feels like I'm recovering pieces that were left out there.

One of the key parts of the book, and this is perhaps a small spoiler, is this recurring vision or dream of me sitting playing a guitar. How that vision changes and develops is one of the threads that run through the book. 

I constantly saw it in dreams and was puzzled at how it changed, but it was consistent in one respect; it was me, sitting, playing guitar and seen from the back.

When author Melodie Ramone asked to play at the Festival, I agreed quickly without much thought. Normally I'd have said no, as my main interest is in recording music for my YouTube channel, but she asked on a day that was a milestone; I had bought this beat up old acoustic guitar from a pawn shop, and was going to play a guitar for the first time in a few years.

That was a couple of months ago, and on this day, whether I'm truly ready or not, or even intend to play live again isn't the point.

When I go on Saturday morning at 11:00 am, I'll have another piece of my soul back, and maybe that vision that kept coming to me out there will become clearer. If John Fahey was right, that music comes out of the unconscious, then all will be revealed then.

If not, I'll keep playing till it is. 

...give me that old time religion...

One of the elements of the book that took the longest to integrate into the narrative was spirituality.

There was plenty of the old time religion out there. There was at least one Christian cult trying to recruit followers and another church with well heeled parishioners who were heartless with the homeless when no one was looking.

That's an important point, what goes on when people aren't looking. In mainstream Islam, for example, it's said that God looks more kindly on those who do good works out of the sight of others. 

This can run counter to Western practice, where doing charitable work is a popular PR exercise, and donors walk around with T shirts or other merchandise to commemorate their support.

That's not bad per se, but like all human endeavors, engaging in symbolism often leads to a gap between belief and practice. People can maintain appearances and treat it as practice. What they do when no one is looking is revealing.

...there are no atheists in a foxhole...

There is that old saying that there are no atheists in a foxhole (during a battle), and plenty of people out there looked to God to rescue them. I think it's a more nuanced concept, in that when things seem hopeless, it's natural to look for someone or something to rescue you, to hope or wish for a miracle. 

God tends to be the default option because so many people over the centuries have said that a miracle will come if you have faith.

Other popular saviors include angels, drill sergeant or alpha hero types who'll kick your butt and make you man up, Uncle Sam, fairy godmothers, true love, Lady Luck, and the one that was often more popular than God out there, the handsome Prince or hero who comes to save you.

I can list all those out with a wry (and slightly sad) grin now, but all those symbols or psychologies were out there, and often used by some pretty tough characters who understood those as basic human psychologies that could be manipulated.

People reacted differently to the homeless life. There were the barely hanging in there survivor types, some who seemed to thrive, but most had to deal with a variety of demons that made some easy prey for predators.

One common denominator was pain, and the way out on any narrow path not only took patience and faith, but physical and emotional endurance. That last element, endurance, was the real test. At first there's optimism, then hope, and then as things drag on, wishing and asking for rescue, and finally any end to the pain. At that point, looking for a hero can be dangerous.

...faith is all you need, maybe...

A key element of faith isn't that it gives one physical strength or triggers endorphins, but that it's rooted in the concept that the mind can make a decision that's not based on physical symptoms or the apparent reality surrounding you.

In other words, if you believe that the pain is temporary or something that can be overcome, then a decision can be made to endure. Religion can add the possibility of reward for keeping the faith.

That's not just a religious concept; if there was no ability to view the mind and body as separate, then torture would be a sure fire way to make people talk or confess. People would quit at the first obstacle, etc.

Still, enduring is easier said than done.

 I once related in a past blog that many of the homeless have a neutral attitude towards the drug use of others. It wasn't that it was viewed it as an activity that should be legal or something like that, but a recognition that the druggies were self medicating.

I eventually saw it that way too, once I had one too many crappy desperate days. I'd look at a stoned person and not see some loser or sick person but someone who had probably reached the limit of their endurance and just wanted the pain to stop. 

...back to God...

My concept of God and spirituality went through many phases, as with many of the other common ideas that people believe in.

Whether my life in a car was God's will, punishment, karma, dark night of the soul, a temporal phase, necessary failure in a winner/loser system of capitalism, laziness, failure to get up and go, subconscious fear of success, or whatever, I explored every one of those notions.

I had to find myself. I did come out of it with a belief in God intact, but a lot of notions surrounding that central faith had to be examined and discarded. 

Holding on to a main concept, and examining the surrounding clutter isn't something that just relates to questions about God. It applies to any idea that mankind has taken and added the inevitable politics and frailties.

It would have been easy to dismiss God, for example, when I ran into that cult mentioned earlier. That church was certainly not about God, but about power and money.

But I didn't judge Christianity by that church any more than I'd dismiss democracy by the actions of corrupt politicians. The fact is that any concept that mankind touches moves away from principle and into politics and manipulation.

I should add, it isn't always good to judge a belief system by the behavior of it's followers either.

...reading the label...

Much of any group or belief system described in the media will be defined by outsiders. 

Examples include atheists who say that Christianity causes all wars are atheists, Christians who believe all Muslims are terrorists, Liberals who assume Conservatives are money grubbing fascists, and the latter thinking that the former are nanny state Socialists intent on destroying democracy, those are all definitions and labels imposed from outside of a group.

One can argue that groups or subcultures can't always be trusted to honestly define themselves, and that's true. However, that's why hearing both sides is such an important axiom in truth seeking. A lot of so-called truth is really opinion and riddled with self interest.

Most of what people think the homeless are is defined through the media in the same way, through viewpoints filtered by various biases.

There's a tendency to view the homeless as a herd, defined in this or that story as drug users or whatever. It creates a mentality that judges the group by the actions of an individual or individuals. Make no mistake, the homeless are a collection of subcultures, not a uniform mass.

...So, getting back to saviors...

As I said, people out there reacted to life out there in different ways, but all had to confront the various ideas we grow up with, from God to Darwin. As those "faiths," as you will, proved to work or not, people began their rise or fall.

One character in my book is a young woman that lived with a group of homeless, whose life has a tragic trajectory that affected me very deeply. Several people went at her with this or that faith or system, and she tried out most. There were a couple of Princes, who turned out to be just be horny males willing to take advantage of desperation, dealers who promised escape but really were in the business of drugs and prostitution, the drill sergeant leader who projected strength but was just another run of the mill alpha jerk, and respectable society that applied tough love to her and then dumped her back out onto the street.

The final one drove her mad, yet even then, she had a safety net that society doesn't, and can't provide. She had friends. It only saved her biological life, but as a young person with strong survival instincts, time is on her side and the spirit can still win, but I doubt she'll thank any savior. She's been there, done that.

...the biggest God of all...

One other element that can become a faith out there is luck. 

I once discussed a book by Phillip K. Dick called "Solar Lottery," which described a society that was convinced that luck was an ability or in spiritual terms, having a blessed life or a special connection to God that others didn't have.

I describe luck differently in the book, because it isn't an ability or gift. It's part of what goes on randomly in the universe, and it's called fate, luck or fortune.

That is to say, we try to understand an infinite concept by describing it with words and end up with only a snapshot that captures a section, which then makes it seem comprehensible. It's sort of a way of trying to control it, to reduce fears, like reducing the world to God and Satan.

Knowing that it's a flawed idea to use words to create a snapshot of an infinite concept isn't new.

The early Catholic intellectuals, called Mystics back then, wrote that trying to use words to describe God limited the understanding of his infinite power. They weren't talking about shooting off thunderbolts or destroying a city full of sinners. Super powers are a finite concept. The point was that a person couldn't describe infinity with words, that attempts to define it in words limited it.

Or, a cynic may say, control it,

One thing that did became apparent out there, is that as long as there's a God, there'll be men who will put words in his mouth. That's not a problem that only plagues the religious.

...be lucky...

So...I talk about the infinite nature of the universe, using limiting words for chrissake, but mainly I'm talking about one thing described in quantum terms, which is "chaos," or the seemingly random movement of the universe that actually has patterns.

The various patterns, or universes do collide among other things, and that collision is luck in a nutshell...when you think about it, it makes sense...or at least as much as any explanation of luck can be.

That's why one should keep trying even if the odds seem stacked against success. The odds that good things will happen is zero if you don't. That's the underlying principle that powers all faith, keep going and give life a chance to change for the better.

I say all this here in this blog because it won't be described that literally in the book. One by one I've been replacing (as intended) the various philosophical points and essays and putting in stories, conversations and vignettes that illustrate the points. 

Frankly, if you're not philosophically inclined, and that's perfectly OK, it won't be obvious in the book that there is any underlying heavy duty truths. My intention is to write a book that will reveal different things the more times it's read, but will be rewarding on any level you care to take it.

There is a practical reason; to avoid having people think the book is about this or that because of a chapter or passage taken out of context. 

Yes, the book is about the homeless life, but also about the larger issue of displacement, a phenomena that has occurred constantly throughout history. It isn't about gentrification, drug users, runaways, hobos, parasites, crusaders, or whatever per se, even if all show up in the book.

I'm avoiding easy answers. When you read that young woman's story as it threads it's way throughout the book, many emotions and thoughts will come to mind, from pity to admiration. Same with others in the book, none were one dimensional personalities, and after reading about them, you'll recognize that they are very much like the people around you now who were more fortunate than my characters.

It's written that way because that's what I saw. It's also written that way because I recognize that you may see the same thing (as described in the book) and think different. 

That's fine with me, because I know that's how the universe works.

- Al Handa

  Oct. 19, 2018

...cover reveal for Hide In Plain Sight...

This is the cover for the upcoming book, Hide In Plain Sight, hopefully out sometime in the summer of 2018.

-Al Handa

djboogieunderground@gmail.com

The Al & Ivy Homeless Literary Journal Archive:

There are earlier blog entries on the Delta Snake Review section of this site that aren't on the On The Road page:
http://deltasnake.blogspot.com